What were a few key takeaways/lessons I have learned this semester? How were class discussions helpful?  

1. The value of peer reviewing:

Many of us when writing, formulate our thoughts in a timely manner and often don’t go back to review and understand what we really wrote. Everyone is experienced in different levels of writing, coming from various backgrounds in having their own prior knowledge. It is key to recognize that through the writing process, we are able to speak our mind and construct our thoughts in specific orders. However, this can be complex depending on the task at hand. In my own personal writing, I tend to spend more time editing and reviewing my work than actually writing the paper itself. I always find myself asking more questions, seeking feedback from peers and family members. This enables me to analyze my work everyday and helps to build my writing capabilities. In my perspective, I believe this editing process is the most effective to maintaining strong writing and comprehension skills. What may sound properly formatted and makes sense to you, may not be the case for someone else. 

Peer reviewing, reiterated and stressed by Prof McDonald helps to evaluate the quality of our writing and how well we are able to communicate our purpose/message to others. Clarity and quality is evidently better than quantity. Rather than knowing what one has to write about, it is crucial to ask what the intent of doing this is and why it is important. The more elaborate we are in our writing, the easier it is to comprehend. The responses given by peer reviewers best help to fix any grammatical errors, punctuation, sentence structure, and/or uncertainties, etc. It is important to keep in mind that these are constructive criticisms given, to better the writers abilities. Any questions are helpful, as they may guide the writer to think outside of the box. Overall, it is a platform for collaborative work and a way to bounce ideas off one another. Peer reviewing is not only essential, but needed in the classrooms and everyday professional writing.

2. The keys to success in presentation delivery:

Body language can be anything from stances, facial expressions, or motions while presenting. Effective body language creates attentive means in communicating information.This is successful in presenting material because it shows great knowledge and strong confidence in delivering one’s message. Body language can present how comfortable someone is when addressing details. If this is highly prominent, the target audience will connect more with the speaker. This ultimately builds credibility.

When conducting the presentation, the audience is essential in understanding details at hand. The audience needs to clearly attain what is being said through analysis of charts, graphics, titles, etc. Everything must be clear and neat, to avoid confusions and additional questions. It is important to practice to ensure that delivery is smooth, refreshing, and lively. At the end of the presentation, the audience is given the chance to suggest or make constructive criticism to allow for coherent presentation skills. Differences of tone, professionalism, and technicality used is dependent on the audience. Finally, when delivering a project, it is important to engage the audience with the use of hand gestures, signals, clear/ loud speech, and eye contact. The success of a presentation depends heavily on these factors, for the audience to attain great recognition of details. 

3. The need to address techniques upon writing:

The ability to consider purpose, audience, message content, delivery, presentation, etc is very essential when writing. Throughout this course, professor McDonald had stressed and discussed these aspects in completion of successful writing. Upon doing this, one must consider the mood, tone, professionalism, credibility, duration, and colloquialism in presenting data. Differences of tone, professionalism, and technicality used is dependent on the audience. Stressing this concern is very helpful in addressing specific terminology one wishes to speak about and the ability to express certain phrases for apprehension. 

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